WALNUT CREEK, Calif.—John Garamendi, currently California's lieutenant governor and its former insurance commissioner, has won a special congressional election in Northern California's 10th District.
Mr. Garamendi beat David Harmer for the seat in Tuesday's balloting and will succeed Ellen Tauscher, who left the U.S. House to take a job in the State Department, according to state election officials.
Mr. Garamendi will serve the remainder of Ms. Tauscher's term and must seek and win re-election in 2010 to retain the seat.
Mr. Garamendi, who previously served as a state assemblyman and state senator, became California's first elected insurance commissioner in 1991. In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed him Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Dept. of the Interior.
He was re-elected insurance commissioner in 2002, and then as California's lieutenant governor in 2006. He was a candidate for governor in 2008 before suspending his candidacy earlier this year to run for Ms. Tauscher's seat.
During his first term as insurance commissioner, Mr. Garamendi made the controversial move to seize troubled life insurer Executive Life Insurance Co., which ran into financial difficulties as a result of junk bond investments. The subsequent breakup and sale of ELIC to an entity owned in part by the French government set off years of litigation over the move.
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